Demography is the study of the human population (Macionis, 2013). One part of demography is looking at the effects population growth has, and figuring out how we can control them. The first factor in population change is fertility. Fertility is measured by the crude birth rate, which is an equation determining how many live children are born annually per 1,000 people in a population. While the crude birth rate does not take individual factors of a specific population into account, it is easy to use and gives a rough estimate. The second factor is mortality. The crude death rate is used to calculate this, and is the same formula as the crude birth rate – how many times it occurs in a year per 1,000 people in a population. The infant mortality …show more content…
Growth is important in a society. If all the people meeting specific needs get too old to work or dies, there would be no one to take over that particular function. However, extreme growth could be a major problem and would be considered a latent dysfunction. The same could be said for environmental effects – some are to be expected and cannot be avoided, but too much would cause problems in the functioning of the population. Social conflict theory would view the problem with population growth as lying in the distribution of goods and unequal consumption. If everyone were using energy, water, food, and the like with the same careful consumption, there would be no problem with a larger population. However, some people, particularly those living in poverty, consume less and will still face the environmental issues that can arise, while the rich and powerful use too much and cause more problems. If the people that use more would act more socially responsible, there would be enough to sustain a population growth. Symbolic interaction theory would focus on the perception of the people in society and their views on things that affect the population growth and environmental changes. One example would be the contribution of having a large family to population growth, which could be prevented by birth control. However,
Population continues to grow and is expected to reach an all time high in future years. There are tons of different reasons for why population is rising so quickly. In document d, it says, "Every second 5 people are born and 2 people die, a net gain of 3 people. This fact from document d shows one reason why population growth is at all time high. Document d, also states "At this rate, the world population will double every 40 years and would be 12 billion in 40 years, 24 billion in 80 years, and more than 48 billion in 120 years." This will create tons of difficulties, like the amount of food and supplies needed for the world, which will make it nearly impossible for supplies to keep pace with the population growth. Document a shows
As an object of analysis sociologists defines population as an aggregate of people in a geographical area that has size and longevity. The size has a lower limit of two and no upper maximum. Longevity varies and has a lower limit of zero with no known upper limit. Populations are by definition made up of individuals. The study of human population is termed demography. Demography studies the size and composition of a population, as well as migration and location of the population. Demographers track birth rates and death rates and monitor the population growth and try to explain them in terms of the social system's development. A good example is the Malthusian theory in which population increases geometrically and the resources increase arithmetically resulting in a lack of resources resulting in famine and war. Fortunately the theory is flawed in that it does not consider social factors such as artificial contraception and the burden of large families in a post industrial society. The way a population interacts with the environment creates a social system. The social system draws on the population and affects the population. An example of this is in India where the ratio of men to women is 108 (108 males to every 100 female) while the sex ratio of most other nations is below 100. The cause for this disparity ...
Life expectancy in many parts of the world has increased since 1800 (Life Expectancy by Age, n.d). To understand these changes we can study the demographic transition, the changes in birth and death rates over extended periods of time. The industrial revolution has significantly improved the conditions of humans and in 20th century death rates declined but the birth rates remained unchanged. In many of today’s developed countries both rates have declined; however, in developing countries, while death rates have declined due the improvements of living conditions, the birth rates are still high which has caused a record high population growth (HAUB & GRIBBLE, 2011).
The structural-functional approach sees the way different parts of the society work together like parts in a machine. “A framework for building theory that sees society as an arena of inequality that generates conflict and change” (Macionis, 2013). If one part of the machine didn’t work, the rest of the machine wouldn’t work until that part was fixed and working again. Growth becomes necessary for the society to stay stable. Everyone added to the population serves a purpose to the community. Whether they become teachers, doctors, or scientists – they benefit the society further. The social conflict theory views society as unequal that creates conflict and wants for change. “A framework for building theory that sees society as the product of the everyday interactions of individuals” (Macionis, 2013). This perspective can be seen in those living in poverty struggling to survive. While the earth is pushed to its limits of providing food and shelter, many people suffer from starvation and are exposed to the elements of Mother Nature while others live extremely comfortably in posh living conditions. The symbolic interaction approach sees individuals are creatures of habits. “A framework for building theory that sees society as the product of the everyday interactions of individuals” (Macionis, 2013). If an individual lives in an urban population, they are more accustomed to heavily populated areas with access to many businesses at hands reach. Vice versa, if an individual from an urban population goes to the city, they are more likely to revert to their small quiet city away from everyone. Urban and rural populations must intertwine so they can receive the benefits of both societies. People usually go along the lines with what they were raised around. The environment they grew up in is the basis to how they live the rest of their life. Occasionally there is that
Overpopulation describes a condition where the number of people uses the resources in a closed environment so that it can no longer maintain that population (Elliot Institute). Around the early 1900 's, the world population had grown to a billion people, and English scholar, Thomas Malthus and partner economists predicted that mankind would outgrow its available resources because a limited amount of land wouldn 't be able to support a population with a limitless potential for growth. Today our population is more than 7 billion. Despite the fact that better health care and medicine along with advances in food production and easier access to freshwater and sanitation have given us the ability to feed ourselves and fight many sickness 's, some
1. Demography is a discipline in Ecology that deals with population measures such as, age, size and overall structure are critical to demographic work. Demography is used to help understand a populations growth pattern, although not all individuals are the same age and size or have the same survival and birth rates. Demography allows for greater depth and detail of a populations structure to be characterized and analyzed.
2. Infant mortality rate: the number of death of an infant in a year per 1,000 live birth in the same year.
The human population growth rate is an alarming issue that brings with it irreversible consequences, that will likely effect the way of life for future generations to come. With the serious incline in population statistics comes catastrophic processes such as global warming and deforestation that have major ‘knock on’ ramifications. It’s issues such as these that need to be considered when we think about the growth of the human population, and we must take into account why these issues are occurring. We must also explore the options available to us that may assist in limiting the problems, or eliminating them all together, to provide a better place, not only for us in existence now, but also those who will walk this earth in the future decades and centuries to come.
Population growth is the change in population over a period of time. It happens due to a number of factors such as standard of living, cultural factors, and government policies. When the standard of living become better such as the improvement of social conditions ( shelter, sanitation, clean water , health care and etc) death rate and birth rate reduce as more people become inclined to have fewer children. As standard of living increases, there will be more immigrants thus an increase in population. Government policies which encourage people to have lesser or more children also has a significant effect on birth rate too.
Symbolic Interactionism could be applied to this topic because it could help explain why people fail to engage in activities to help stop environmental changes or actively engage in these activities. For example, if someone buys the organic stuff or makes sure they buy the special groceries that are all about saving the rainforest or spends time recycling, they may be branded as hippies or tree huggers in a way that has a negative connotation. People often don’t like to stand out so if something like that happens or they are the only person in their neighborhood putting out that green bin on recycling days, chances are that they will stop. Symbolic Interactionism also highlights people’s perceptions of environmental issues they form from public attitudes, so if half of our country says environmental changes aren’t a problem, not a lot is going to change. Building off of this, if people and organizations are not united and vocal about what they consider a problem and a way to address it, action will again fail. I feel that functionalism is also a fitting theory for this topic because it can suggest that two things are related, population growth and environmental issues. I think the functionalism theory suggests that in a society as industrialized, advanced, and large as ours environmental problems are to be expected, but they have become
Human population growth is becoming a huge issue in our world today. The population is increasing rapidly. The reason that it is becoming a concern is because it has affected the economic, environmental, and social aspects of our world. In the film Frontline: Heat, we can see how there might not be a future for our planet unless we are able to reduce the emissions and make our world a safe place. Not only for the present but also for future generations so that they are able to live long and healthy lives.
Population growth may be defined as the increase in the number of individuals in a population. In general a population will tend to increase in number when the available resources are greater than that required by the members of the population present at that particular time. As long as resources are available, every population has the tendency to grow exponentially.
Our world is too small for our ever rapidly growing population. One day resources will run dry and vanish, which will bring death and loss to all nations on this planet. Many researchers and scientists have confirmed that the population will reach 10 billion by the end of the century and will continue to stream upward. There are many different ways in trying to decrease population to contain global warming and assist our environmental changes. The only way to steadily succeeding, families must be the regulators of their fertility and future. Environmentalism can head in a negative direction, which may result in population control and even anti-immigrant policies. Can the developing effort of ‘population integrity’ protect our world while recognizing birth moralities?
Demography is the study of human populations (Thomson, 2007). Demographers study characteristics such as birth, death rate, sex, ratio, and age structure in a population. Studying such changes is useful in the understanding of social, and economic problems which help to identify possible solutions (Thomson, 2007). The study of Demography allows us to be able to comprehend and analyze economic and social trends which is crucial in preparing for future developments. (Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick, N/A).